All Chapters of The Forgotten Heiress: Rise of The Lycan Queen: Chapter 171 - Chapter 179

There were bones beneath the capital.Not of men.Of queens.Long-buried monarchs who once ruled not with steel, but with flame and fate. Their remains whispered of power older than thrones, older than Crescent Vale itself—laid to rest beneath a city that had forgotten the weight of its blood.Seren moved like a shadow through the dust-laced catacombs beneath the ruined city. Crescent Vale, once the holy seat of the Moonstone Court, now lay in fractured strata—its palaces smothered by ash, its grand temples sunk into silence. The marble cracked. The moonglass dulled. And still, the secrets lingered, etched into every cold breath of the stone.Mourne walked ahead, his torch of silverfire a living tongue of unnatural light. The flame hissed, not in protest, but in warning—its color too pure for this place, too clean for the stories it now illuminated.He hadn’t spoken since the Crimson Summit.Neither had she.Something had changed that day on the blood-steeped cliffs. Not in the world,

It was closed by memory and by blood.Sirelia alone stood by its doorstep, a hand pressed against the dark obsidian door, the other clenched in a fist. Torchlight flickered and whipped the dust, borne on breath and ghosts. The runes incised in the frame pulsed, not in invitation, but in threat.She was only in this room for a single time before.Once, when she was a girl, standing beside Elara.Before the war.Before scars.Before they became names instead of sisters.She uttered the passphrase, Elara's private word, the one they alone shared."Moonbound by none."The door opened.And the door to the past opened.The chamber itself was circular, its floor being paved with bone and moonstone.There were rows and rows of splintered books.Dusty relics from centuries before even Elara's time adorned the walls behind cracked glass: melted fragments of crowns, scrolls with dead languages inscribed on them, a petrified lycan's talon in mid-shift.But the central object is the one that drew

The dungeons beneath Moonfang had not echoed with screams in years.Kael had made sure of that.Elara had believed in mercy, even for enemies. She said fear made wolves into monsters. And yet tonight, the sound of bone hitting stone returned to the fortress, low and rhythmic, a heartbeat of interrogation that pulsed from the walls.A Dustborn spy had been captured during the Crimson Summit ambush.Unmasked.Young.Unbroken.And completely silent.Until now.Kael stood in the lowest chamber, staring through silverfire bars at the prisoner who sat cross-legged on the cold floor. She was no more than twenty. Runes inked across her scalp glowed faintly when she blinked. Her hands had been bound with silver thread, but she didn’t struggle.She watched him with eyes the color of dying coals."You were told not to speak," Kael said.She tilted her head."I was told not to lie."The chains rattled as Kael stepped forward."You were one of the inner guard. You had access to the sigilstones. Th

There is no such thing as neutrality in a world on fire.The hybrid lords of the Eastern Divide had played the long game, surviving Elara’s reign, retreating from Sirelia’s rise, keeping their cities independent, their banners unbloodied, their allegiances vague.But fire doesn’t respect fences.And now, with Seren’s mark burning in the sky and the gods whispering her name, they made their move.Not toward the Flame.Toward the Dust.The meeting took place in the Broken Gallery, once a neutral sanctuary of treaties and truce, now a shattered relic reeking of burnt stone and worse intentions. No wolves were allowed inside. No Moonbound. No emissaries from Seren’s camp.Only hybrids.And one Dustborn representative.Venn.Draped in rust-red robes and silence.Lord Vaelen of Erothis sat at the table’s head. He was younger than most, but ambition made him old fast. His forked tongue had twisted many councils in his favor. Now, it wrapped around betrayal like a snake finding home.“The Ash

The camp slept beneath a silver sky.It was the first clear night in weeks. The clouds had scattered, and the ashfall had paused, as if the world itself held its breath. Wolves dozed near the watchfires. Soldiers snored with blades still clutched in their hands. Witches murmured spells in their dreams.And in the heart of Emberfall, Seren sat alone by a dying flame.She didn’t tend it.Didn’t feed it.She simply watched.Because this fire didn’t burn from wood.It burned from memory.And tonight, it was all that kept her warm.She didn’t hear Kael approach.She felt him.The familiar pull, not like prophecy, not like pain. Like gravity, wearing a wolf’s skin.He didn’t speak.Just lowered himself beside her.For a while, they said nothing.The fire crackled.Stars blinked overhead.Then he asked, voice soft:“Do you ever wish you weren’t chosen?”She didn’t look at him.“I wasn’t chosen,” she said. “I was left.”He nodded.“I know that feeling.”More silence.Then Kael reached into hi